Employee Appreciation and the Lost Art of the Road Trip

Christopher Shaffer — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 18:14:30 +0000

Here at 1-800-HOSTING, we strive to make sure our employees are satisfied. Creating group incentives that keep our employees happy across the board is difficult as everyone is motivated and responds differently. Nevertheless, one thing is sure, everyone enjoys a vacation. Luckily, for those of us who make it to the magical 5 year mark, we enjoy a company sponsored trip to a destination of our choice. In the past, many have chosen Hawaii, and when I reached 5 years of tenure last August I started thinking about where I would like to go. Given my duties and responsibilities here, it is hard to take a week or two off, but I figured it was time. Because hey, I’m not paying right?

So with the funding and time in place, I pondered the usual places people tend to head to for their vacation getaways. Hawaii, Mexico, and maybe even Europe if I could sell it, but none of these seemed to really interest me enough to make me pack my bags. What I have been doing for some time now are mini-trips of a 2-3 day nature, usually centered around some sort of goal or purpose. But sometimes I just get in the car and drive. Being a fan of the Food Network, Travel Channel, and food and travel in general, most of the destinations end up being a restaurant or a local attraction in a far off city or state. Always the adventurer, I’ve been known to drive 500 miles round trip just to eat a hamburger and am currently 20% through my Texas Monthly top 50 burgers in Texas list.

I must mention that my father never allowed us to fly for family vacations when there were safe roads leading to the destination. So unless we were leaving the country, Canada excluded, (think 36 hour trek from Houston to Calgary Alberta) we drove…always. Ironically, when I was younger, I dreaded the days upon days in our custom Dodge van. I now believe that this is what has instilled my passion for the open road. The trip itself should be the vacation, not the destination.

So with a basic idea in place of visiting unique local establishments and attractions across the country, I am now thinking about how to do make this into a worthwhile vacation. My travel partner/cohort/ for many previous adventures and I have already settled on a 1-2 week adventure. We plan on heading east from Texas towards Florida, then up the east coast, and then returning through the Midwest. This should give us plentiful amounts of scenery along the way and allow us to sample the most genres of food from local BBQ and seafood, to comfort food and diner joints along the way.

Keeping with the technology geek that I am, and to make the trip more unique, I think we will be renting a Winnebago rather than spend each evening in a hotel room. With my desire to avoid lodging chains, this should prove a lot safer as well as fun by allowing us to cover more ground in less time. Armed with the latest in wireless aircards and GPS navigation and tracking, I am sure I can find some way to integrate the trips progress electronically into our blog or mini site.

(Preliminary route courtesy of Google Maps)

I’m interested in hearing about any local attractions or points along the way we should visit.

1-800-HOSTING Blog » food network

Employee Appreciation and the Lost Art of the Road Trip

Related Posts